


Mellow Tone

by Yu4ic



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Break Up, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreams vs. Reality, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/F, Female Protagonist, Inspired by Dreams, Not a Love Story, One Shot, POV Lesbian Character, POV Third Person, Post-Break Up, Short One Shot, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:29:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24805465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yu4ic/pseuds/Yu4ic
Summary: To Tessa, most problems can be solved with a few tablets of melatonin: to make the bad memories go away and bring back the fonder ones; to kill time by spending it in the past. The only place Tessa can see her ex again is quite literally in her dreams. Fortunately, her apartment and the workplace parking lot make for great sleeping places. That is, until she’s caught.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Kudos: 2





	Mellow Tone

Tessa punched her employee number into the time clock with a smile. The screen went blank for a moment, then read “HAVE A NICE DAY.” Just from unclipping her nametag, she felt pounds lighter. With every step Tessa took away from the hospital repair room, the less analytical she became. By the time she stepped into the hospital cafeteria, her brain had dissolved to goo. She beelined for an empty table in a tucked away corner.

With her newfound privacy, Tessa pulled out her phone and opened her journaling app. The loading screen cleared and she was greeted with her hundreds of entries. Most were regular journal pages, but her favorites were the ones about her dreams. She pressed the “new entry” button and got to work making another of the former. 

As Tessa filled the digital space with words about her day, something nagged at her subconscious. She tuned back into the present world and caught it in an instant. Her co-worker, Adam, was placing an order twenty feet away. Tessa looked back at her phone, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, praying Adam wouldn’t spot her in her hidey-cove. 

“Tessa?”   
_ Fuck _ .

“Hey, Adam!” Tessa hid a wince, “It’s your breaktime already?”

The deli worker slid Adam his order and change. He thanked her. Tessa withered inside once she realized he was walking over. She clicked her phone off and tucked it away.

“You’re still here?” he asked incredulously.

Tessa offered a nervous laugh and held her phone up, “you know me. Hey, I totally lost track of time, so-”

“Oh, I know you gotta run, so I’ll make this quick, but,” Adam started, “I finally finished that bar counter I’ve been talking about, and I’m throwing a party Saturday with some of the hospital staff, and I was wondering…?”

Tessa gathered her things, “I am flattered, really, but parties just aren’t my thing, and-”

“No, no, I get it, some of the pharm techs said the same thing, don’t even worry about it.”

_ Pharmacy technicians? _

Tessa wondered if Rose, the cute, pint-sized woman with the curly bob was one of the ones that declined.

“Thank you for the invite, though. See you tomorrow?”

“See you!” Adam had already started unwrapping his meal.

Relief washed back into Tessa once she began walking away. He was a nice enough guy, but Tessa just couldn’t bring herself to care; she hardly remembered his aforementioned bar counter. Caring about someone new felt like it wasn’t worth the effort, even if that someone was a pint-sized curly bob.

Tessa stepped out into the parking lot and yawned. It was only about seven in the evening.

Pink had washed through the evening sky. Cold winds nipped her sides.

_ Where had she parked her car? _

The neon green of her car grabbed her attention like the metallic leprechaun it was. Such a simple task was already more than Tessa’s tired brain could handle. She slid into her driver seat, locked the doors, reclined her chair, then let out an earthy sigh. She checked her phone’s lock screen for the alarm symbol before closing her eyes. Eyes still closed, she fished her melatonin pill bottle out of the glove compartment. Muscle memory let her pop off the lid and take a pill with ease. The sterile taste of the pill in her mouth was enough to start a smile. Tessa reclined the chair even more. As the melatonin started to course into her system, she felt her goo brain sign off into slumber.

  
  


The skies were pink. Tessa leaned over a balcony railing as the reunion party raged on behind her. She was practically sweating just thinking about how many people had been crammed into one room.

“Hey,” a voice called out from behind Tessa.

“Marie?” Tessa smiled at her ex, “I wasn’t expecting you back in Oregon,” 

“Wouldn’t miss a high school reunion for the world,” Marie smiled back, “how’ve you been, girlie?”

Tessa blushed, “Could be better, but, I’m livin’. You making it big in New York?

Marie sighed in awe, “New York’s been amazing. I’ve got research credits now and- oh, and the studies I’m doing there are… they’re something. It’s everything I went to school for and everything I stand for,” she turned to Tessa, “but what about you? You a big name actress yet?”

Flickers of Tessa’s day job as a hospital repair technician flashed into her mind.

“Not exactly, I’m-” Tessa forced a smile back onto her face, “I’m putting that stuff on hold for now.”

Tessa looked back up at Marie. The pink skies had gone away and they were sitting in a fancy restaurant. Open menus sat between the two of them. Tessa couldn’t remember entering the diner, or where she had just been moments ago, so she didn’t think about it too much. She didn’t actually read the menu, but her eyes scanned the blurred space and her order popped into her head.

“Well, putting stuff on hold is fine,” Marie folded up her menu, “my girlfriend’s doing the same thing, but she’s happy where she is.” Marie paused, “...are you?”

“Am I what?”

Was she asking Tessa if she was taken? Tessa generated some lies and misdirects. Somehow, she sensed that “No, not since you and I” would have been inappropriate for platonic small talk. That’s all it ever was anymore.

“Are you happy?”

  
  


A knocking sound jolted Tessa awake. She was sitting in her car, alone. The sky had grown pitch black and so had the nearby apartments. Blinding light was coming in from her driver side window. She shielded her eyes. The light flicked off and Tessa’s eyes began to adjust. 

An officer was standing right outside her window. Tessa’s heart sank for more reasons than one. She rolled the window down.

The officer squatted down to level with her, “Ma’am, are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Tessa was horrified at her post-nap voice, “yes, officer, I’m fine, why do you ask?”

“You don’t seem to be in the right state of mind is all. Do you know what time it is?”

Tessa looked out at the parking lot. It was completely abandoned save for the police car and one other car. She glanced back at the officer and noticed that he wore a “Sheriff” patch.

“I’m guessing one in the morning?”

“Try two,” the sheriff huffed, “Anyhoo, I was just patrolling and stopped to make sure that you were going to make it home okay. Do you need any help getting home, or are you good enough to go on your own?”

_ Good enough? _ Tessa picked at those words in her head. Maybe he just meant after waking up so recently. Or maybe... 

Tessa’s heart rate shot up.

_ Where had she put her pill bottle? _

“Yup, I should be rested now,” Tessa glanced at the blinking alarm symbol on her silent phone, “Guess I missed my alarm by a few hours.”

The sheriff studied Tessa. Tessa tried to not draw any attention towards her glove compartment.

“Stay safe out there, ma’am. Have a good night.” The sheriff left for his car.

“You too!” Tessa called out after him.

Once his eyelines were clear from her car, she glanced down at her lap. She felt the cushion behind her rear. There, her fingers brushed up against the unmistakable shape of her pill bottle. She cursed herself before tucking it between her legs; the sheriff was still sitting in his car parked behind her, and going for the glove compartment would have been suspect.

Tessa shifted her car out of park and headed her way home.

It was three in the morning by the time Tessa turned in for the night. She rolled into bed and pulled out her phone. The screen lit up with Instagram’s white background. A little red box popped up: new notification. 

_ Strange _ . A follow request?  _ Even stranger _ . 

It took her some time to work out that the person requesting was Adam from work.

“Confirm, or Deny?” Instagram asked.

Tessa chose the third option: ignore. She returned to her home screen to begin her mission of liking pictures from people she liked and ignoring pictures from those she didn’t. Occasionally, she’d catch herself staring at pictures of loving couples for too long. After a few screen scrolls, Instagram showed her a wall of suggested friends. Some were mutuals, some were “Follows you”, but one in particular nearly made her hurl her phone at the wall: “Marie Nguyen ― New to Instagram.” Tessa’s thumb hovered over the profile, but she didn’t tap on it. Her thumb hovered over the “X” that would make the profile disappear, but she didn’t tap there, either. Tessa again chose the option three: she put her phone into standby. She reached for the melatonin pills on her nightstand, poured two into her palm, and slipped under her covers.

  
  


Marie hugged her jacket tighter, fighting the evening winds, “I think you should talk to her.”

“I know, I know,” Tessa gazed out at the lake they were walking alongside, “I just...can’t.”

Marie rolled her eyes.

Tessa sneered, “Easy for you to say, you’ve already got a girlfriend. What if she’s not into chicks? What if she’s got a boyfriend, too? What if she’s ace? I don’t know anything about her aside from her name and that she works in the pharmacy.”

Marie stopped walking, “How much did you know about me when you asked me out?”

When Tessa woke, she felt something hot resting against her cheek. She peeled her face off of it. It was her phone. The screen was too bright. She narrowed her eyes at it.

“Oh, fuck.” Tessa muttered.

Tessa bounced out of bed and had her pajamas off in record time. She dashed to her bathroom counter and got to work on herself.  _ Hair, teeth, face, hair again, blow dry!  _ She didn’t like what she saw in the mirror, but it would have to suffice. She stormed back into the bedroom to find her phone. The phone was kettle-hot in her hands. It was still silently blinking “MISSED ALARM: 1 HOUR AGO.” Tessa muttered a string of expletives as she powered the device off and plugged it into its charger. Her eyes darted to the clock on the wall: thirty minutes until her shift started, and it was a thirty-minute drive on a good day.

Her fridge shook with the force of her throwing its door open. A single boiled egg was all Tessa took. Her fingers got to work on cracking it and peeling it. She popped the entire egg into her mouth. As she chewed, she found her jacket. Flashes of a dream came to her as she shrugged the jacket on, but she would have to worry about those details later. She found her keys and her badge. She had a foot out the door when she remembered that she didn’t have her phone on her. Her floorboards squeaked as she paced back into her bedroom, freed the device, and shot out the front door. 

  
  


Twenty-seven minutes after Tessa had left her house, she pulled into the hospital parking lot. She was still clipping on her badge as she stepped through the entrance sliding doors. 

“Go get ‘em, Tessa!” someone from the pharmacy cheered.

Tessa’s panicked heart ran warm for a moment, but she couldn’t afford to stop walking. She did, however, turn to briefly admire the pint-sized woman.

“Thanks, Rose!” Tessa offered an innocent wave before walking out of view.

With less than a minute to spare, Tessa reached the time clock. She punched in her code. The display froze, processing her request. She drummed her fingers along the sides of the clock. The screen went blank. Instead of “ERROR, SEE HR”, the display greeted Tessa with “ENJOY YOUR SHIFT.”

Tessa smiled. It went away when she found herself toe to toe with her manager.

The man stood nearly a foot shorter than Tessa. His scowl, though boyish, was one that employees had quickly learned to fear. Tessa was no different.

“My office. Now.” the manager stormed off without her.

Nurses, technicians, and doctors flowed around Tessa and the time clock as if neither were really there. Somewhere, Adam was presumably walled off, either examining equipment or repairing it. The hospital marched on without her. 

On the way to the office, Tessa spoke to no one. She shut the door behind her.

“I can’t afford to have you coming into work late again,” the manager started with an unreadable glare.

“But sir,” Tessa frowned, “I don’t understand, I showed up on time today-”

“I’m not talking about today, Tessa. I’m just letting you know that you can’t afford another ‘next time.’ Am I making myself clear?”

Tessa sank, “Yes, sir.”

The manager waved her out, but not before turning his attention back to his computer monitor. He said nothing as she left.

Tessa stepped into the repair room. Adam took one glance at her and his smile faded into concern. 

“Woah, you doin’ okay?” Adam set his tools down, “You seem shaken up.”

Tessa cursed herself for being so readable.

“Just fine,” Tessa slid into her usual chair. She nodded at the device Adam was working on moments ago, “is that a new defunct?”

Adam raised an eyebrow at her. Tessa held a studious facade, but internally screamed at the man to take her topic-changer. They sat as seconds passed by, silent.

“Yeah,” Adam sighed, “something up with the ports. The probes work fine on other devices, but this device isn’t making any connections. Now, I’m thinking we can get-”

In truth, Tessa stopped paying attention after “probes.” It didn’t take her full focus to tell which tools Adam wanted, or in what ways he needed a hand. She didn’t get paid to care about anything else. Tessa was Adam’s opposite: her own eyes and her own hands served her well enough. Once in rhythm, she could swing into her repair work almost completely detached.

Tessa thought about her latest dream, starting with the flashes she got from putting on the jacket. She remembered Marie was a large part of it, as she usually was. There was the lake, then the walk… _What were they talking about?_ _How did they get to the lake?_ Tessa couldn’t remember. She picked her brain for more missing segments.

Over the course of a few hours, Tessa and Adam had checked several defunct items off of their to-do lists and recorded some new procedures. All the while, Tessa had been closely monitoring the clock.

“Hey, you cool if I take a fifteen?” Tessa asked aloud.

“Huh?” Adam perked up at the first words Tessa had said in hours, “Oh, sure. Knock yourself out.”

Tessa chuckled to herself.

She stepped into a hallway that was just as busy as she had left it. Patients milled about, sometimes tailing hospital staff. Tessa walked past the pharmacy, and to her surprise, Rose was nowhere in sight. Then, Tessa spotted her. 

Across the lobby and a hallway away, Rose and one of the other pharmacy technicians were making their way towards the cafeteria.  _ How often did her break line up with Rose’s? _ Tessa let go of the thought and stepped out into the parking lot. She got into her car, palmed some melatonin pills, then made sure to stash the bottle back into the glove compartment. She set a ten-minute timer and put the dissolvables under her tongue.

  
  


Out of all the places to lounge in her apartment, the dining chair was Tessa’s favorite. Posture be damned. A single fluorescent light, dangling above her, was all that kept her from plunging into darkness. She mindlessly scrolled through various applications on her phone.

A text message from the default SMS app came in.

Text from Marie Nguyen: “How are you?”

Tessa sat up. She pulled her chair up to the table.  _ No way that was real _ . Clicking the notification brought her to a familiar text log. The message was timestamped just seconds earlier.

Without further hesitation, Tessa sent a “Good. How’ve you been?”

Tessa couldn’t believe it. She read Marie’s reply, then shot back one of her own. The next text to come in was an entire paragraph. Smiling, Tessa typed up a paragraph back. Once she sent it over, she scrolled up and double checked the older timestamps. The numbers confirmed that it had been more than a year since they had last texted. Even then, it was small talk.

A lovely conversation was unfolding, and all Marie had to do was send the first text. 

Tessa would have never.

A knocking sound jolted Tessa awake. The sky was pitch black. She was alone in her car in the hospital parking lot. The sheriff was once more peering into her driver-side window with a girthy flashlight blinding most of her vision.

Tessa shielded the light as she rolled down the window, “Hello, officer.”

“Ma’am, you are aware it is unsafe to operate a vehicle while under the influence?” the sheriff kept the light on her.

“What?” Tessa played dumb.

Her eyes flicked down to her front passenger seat. Her glove compartment was hanging open. The white label and casing reflected bright under the sheriff’s flashlight.

“Do you mind stepping out of the vehicle for me?” the sheriff stepped back.

Pins and needles ran up and down Tessa’s body. There had to be some lie, some trick, that would get her out of this. None came to mind. Her aching was the only thing that she could focus on. She pushed her car door open and stepped out. But, her shoe never hit the floor. She couldn’t find the floor with the other foot, either. Tessa tumbled out of her car door and began to plummet through open sky. She fell for several seconds before-

  
  


Tessa jumped awake and wildly clutched at the nearest objects. Her left hand met the car window, and her right hand clutched the gear shift. Her heart was racing. Tessa wasn’t falling at all. Dozens of other parked cars surrounded hers. The early afternoon sun was shining directly into her front windshield.

Exasperated, Tessa rolled a window down and wiped the sweat off of her face. She focused on breathing in the fresher air until her lungs and heart slowed down.

The ten-minute timer on her phone went off. Tessa squinted at it, wondering why she had set it. Then, she remembered. She snatched the phone up and stepped out of her car for real.

  
  


Later that night, Tessa found herself staggering through her apartment door, feeling worse than when she had left. She made sure to lock her door before sinking into a dining chair, the same one from her dream. She buried her face in her palms.

The memories she wished weren’t real  _ were _ real, and the ones she wished were real  _ weren’t _ . Except for the sheriff and the DUI. Those could stay fake. 

It had been years since Marie moved away. __

_ Why was she still in her dreams? _

Tessa peeled herself off the tabletop and fired up her journaling app. As she started her nightly routine, she got to work jotting down the dream details she could remember. It wasn’t long before her entry was complete, and she couldn’t help but start scrolling through the old entries again. She was several years back by the time she climbed into bed.

The memories waited until she was comfy in her bed before hitting her in the gut. Tessa folded in on herself, crying. Still, she smiled at the entries. The journal marked the only places she could feel unbridled happiness anymore, yet they were nothing but dreams and stale memories. Through tear-blurred eyes, Tessa eyed the bottle of melatonin sitting on her nightstand.

She scooted the bottle out of arms’ reach, then pulled herself into an even tighter ball under her covers. 

For the first time in years, Tessa felt the drowsiness set in without needing a pill under her tongue.

  
  


Tessa sat up, wide awake. She felt too rested. The kind of too-rested that you only get from missing an important alarm. Her phone was nowhere in sight. She looked back in her bed, and what she saw made her heart stop: melatonin pill bottle, cover off, completely emptied. 

She couldn’t afford a “next time.”

Tessa launched into her bathroom and danced her usual late-for-work dance. There was no point in checking the time. Either Tessa would make it or she would not. She lazily brought the water to her face and scrubbed with vigor. Throwing her drawer open nearly dislocated it, but she got her brush, finished using it, then slammed it back into the drawer. She stumbled into the kitchen and overshot her fridge. She got the jam, jelly, a slice of bread, and made the sloppiest open-face peanut butter jelly she had ever made. The entire thing was inside her in three big bites. 

“Ma’am, you need to pay for that.” the hospital deli worker rolled her eyes at her.

Tessa looked down at her hands to see herself holding a sandwich wrapper and a receipt. She couldn’t remember how she ended up at the hospital, but she didn’t think about it too much. Instead, she swiped some napkins from a dispenser and cleaned herself up.

“Shorry.” Tessa sloshed through the peanut butter in her teeth.

She fished some bills and coins out of her pocket and slapped them onto the counter. She hadn’t counted them, but she knew they were the right amount. The deli worker didn’t object. 

The doors slid open for Tessa as she stormed into one of the last hallways as professionally as she could manage. Some heads turned her way, probably assuming a medical emergency was afoot. She flicked her eyes down to make sure her badge was still on and rounded the last corner. 

But, standing between Tessa and the time clock was her manager.

Tessa stopped.

“I warned you.” the man said aloud. 

If Tessa didn’t draw attention before, she certainly did then. The entire hospital had stopped to stare at her, as if each of them were mannequins controlled by the manager just to shame her. Tessa was certain they weren’t even blinking. 

“Sir, I’m sorry, I- I ate a bunch of pills in my sleep and I-”

“I don’t want to hear it, Tessa, what the hell were you thinking?”

“I-”

“Don’t answer that.”

Across the hall, Rose rounded the opposite corner. She too froze, stopping to gawk just like the others. Tessa was horrified. 

Hesitant tears finally started streaming down Tessa’s cheeks, “Please, sir-” 

“Go home,” the manager shook his head at her with enough disgust to hurt Tessa on a near physical level, “You can sleep all you like unemployed.”

He walked back towards his office without another word. That was Tessa’s cue to leave. She took one step backwards, but her foot never found the floor. Neither did the other foot. She reached out with both arms and they found nothing. The floor was gone. She went falling, and falling, and-

  
  


Tessa sat up, sweating. She clawed around her bed and blanket until her fingers found her phone. Shaking, she worked the standby button and the screen blinded her for a few seconds. She squinted at her lock screen. It was the middle of the night. She typed in her password and was immediately greeted with the still-open journaling app. She looked over her shoulder at the nightstand. There sat her melatonin bottle, just out of arm's reach, exactly as she had left it. 

She crawled over and swiped the bottle into her palm. Her knuckles grew white clutching the thing. The coarseness of the cap chafed her palm. The plastic started to creak. Tessa’s eyes darted around the room for a target. Her bedroom door seemed the safest. She slugged it at the door and the bottle made a sickening  _ crunch _ . Loose pills clattered across her bedroom floor and bounced in different directions.

Tessa collapsed into her bed like a starfish, taking up as much space as possible. 

She chuckled, doing nothing else but staring at the popcorn ceiling patterns. She giggled. If all it took to get her tired at night was some emotional draining and physical exertion, then Tessa figured she would be just fine. 

With a stretch, she rolled over and scooped up her phone. She opened Instagram. 

Dream-Marie was right those nights ago; there  _ was _ someone Tessa should talk to. 

Tessa tabbed over to the explore tab and searched up Rose’s full name. It didn’t take long for Tessa to find the Rose she was looking for. She sent a friend request and returned to the home screen before she could change her mind. 

She sat for a moment. 

Tessa searched up Rose’s profile again. Her friend request was still there, but that’s not what she was there for. She worked her way towards “Send Message.” 

“Heyy, it’s Tessa” she sent without thinking about it too much.

A different thought occurred.

She tapped on her social tab. Only then did she fully remember what she was trying to remember. Friend request, Adam from work: “Confirm or Deny?” Tessa chose the first option and followed him back. Underneath Adam’s profile, the Suggestions section gave Tessa pause. She didn’t know that the Suggestions section showed up in two different places. 

Of course, of the suggested profiles on her screen, Marie Nguyen’s was among the first five. It had the same profile pic as before. Instead of clicking on the profile, Tessa’s finger went straight towards the “X”. The profile vanished. She returned to the home feed and made sure she would never see it in that Suggestion section again, either.

Tessa returned to the journaling app. There easily had to be at least a hundred different Marie-dreams logged in those digital pages. Tessa selected every single entry. The memories were comforting, but Tessa needed something new to dream about. Perhaps  _ someone _ new. 

“Goodbye, Marie.” Tessa uttered wistfully as she sent her entries to deletion.

She fought tears, trying not to think about what she had just done. 

Tessa set her phone on her nightstand and charged headlong into sleep, unafraid.


End file.
